


Here Comes October

by crybaby4life



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Apologies, Back to School, Breakups, Broken Hearts, Carl wasn't raised by Rick and Lori, Forgiveness, Getting Back Together, M/M, Rekindling romance, Ron and Enid are besties, or by Rick and Michonne, posh!Carl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8743237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crybaby4life/pseuds/crybaby4life
Summary: The start of school brings a lot of things: the end of summer, the back-to-school mixer, and a chance for Ron to get together with Carl again.Rated T for language.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title is also because I was loosely inspired by the song One Night In October by Little Comets, at least in terms of the whole volatile relationship thing. I think it's a great song, if you haven't heard it, you should check it out! :)
> 
> I never thought I'd write a non-apoc Rarl, not because I don't like it but I just never had an idea for one. But this setup came to me in a flash one day. I think it could stand alone as a one-shot, but I've also debated giving it more chapters, so let me know what you think!
> 
> (Also, I've taken some liberties with Carl's character, just so you know.)
> 
> Hope you like it, guys!

“Come on, just go over there and talk to him already.”

“Mm-mm,” he shook his head twice, his face buried in his red beer cup, his eyes looking resentfully outwards.

“Jesus, you’ve been going on about this all summer,” she said, rolling her eyes and watching her friend leer at the boy across the room. “You’re seriously not gonna do it?”

“No,” he said, taking a swallow and bringing down his beer cup. “No, he doesn’t deserve it.” He shook his head again, his eyes never leaving that place across the room.

“Oh my God, so I just have to hear you whine about it all summer long and then you’re not even gonna fucking do it tonight?” Enid huffed. She was getting exasperated.

Ron didn’t reply. He was just licking the beer off his lips and glaring down the lean, pale figure on the dance floor.

“Okay,” Enid said, and she grabbed Ron by the shoulders and spun him towards her. “This is not about what he deserves anymore, okay? This is not about what you might or might not have had together. Okay, this isn’t even about what _you_ deserve anymore.

“You are _making yourself crazy_.” She gave Ron a shake on all three words, the two long braids that her hair was pulled into bouncing. “Do you hear me? You are going fucking _insane_.”

Ron blinked his small brown eyes at her, beer sloshing in his left hand. 

“If you don’t do this tonight, you are going to be a mess,” she continued. “And I, as your friend, can _not_ let that happen.

“So sometime before the night’s over, you are going to march over there and talk to him.” She pointed a finger towards the spot across the room. “Okay?” she asked.

A small smile had crept on Ron’s face. He nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” She let go and nudged him back to where he’d been standing. He took another swig of his beer and chuckled through his nose while she folded her arms defiantly over her white strappy dress shirt.

He brought down his beer and straightened out his arms. “You wrinkled my jacket, you know,” he said, rubbing his hand over the tan suede material. He got an enormous eyeroll as a reply.

“Shut up. It’s new,” he said, shrugging the jacket into place on his shoulders. Enid sighed.

The two of them stood there in silence for a few minutes, the crowd meandering around them. Ron took a couple more sips of his beer. They both kept staring at the boy in the middle of the floor, with his long brown hair shining in the light, his dark blue plaid shirt framed neatly along his torso.

Ron spoke again, this time more serious. “But what if he just like, doesn’t give a shit anymore?”

Enid looked at him. “You’ll never know unless you go over there.”

Ron sighed, nodding now while he clutched his cup. Enid kept looking at him, sensing the gears turning in his brain. He looked like he was staring far away now, through the crowd and to something else. 

After a second, he blinked and snapped back to reality. He turned to Enid. “Okay, I’m going,” he said, holding out his beer for her to take. 

She took it gracefully and nodded at him. “Good luck, sport,” she said, giving him a pat on the back. He gave her one last smile and said breathlessly, “Thank you,” and then he was off, making his way through the chattering crowd, his eyes on one spot, Enid taking a sip of his beer in the background.

He walked towards the boy in the blue shirt, who was turned and talking to some people, casually standing in a small group near the edge of the dance floor. As he approached, his heart was pounding and he reached back to wipe his sweaty palms on his jeans.

Soon he was right behind him, and the familiar timber of the guy’s laugh was clear to Ron over the sounds of the party. 

Ron cleared his throat. “Hey,” he spoke, before he could second guess himself and turn back.

When Carl turned, all of the confidence that Ron had worked up left him. He thought he was ready; he’d spent the whole summer stalking his ex-boyfriend on Facebook, and of course he’d mulled over old pictures of the two of them on his phone dozens of times. But he’d totally forgotten the intenseness of being face-to-face with those serious blue eyes, the pink lips that always looked concerned yet confident at the same time.

Carl gave him a small, indiscernible smile, and then said, “Hey,” back. He turned to his other friends briefly, seemed to exchange a few “see-you-later’s” while Ron just stood there with his thumbs in his back pockets, and then Carl swiveled back to face him again.

Ron expected the awkward casualness, but what he didn’t expect was the soft, almost humble, expression on Carl’s face. And that seemed to wipe away all of the things Ron had planned to say, too. Instead he bounced uncomfortably on his feet a couple times, started saying, “Uh…” but Carl beat him to the first full sentence.

“Uh, how’s it going?” Carl asked. “I didn’t see you around the party.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ron gestured over his shoulder, “I’ve just been hangin’ by the bar mostly.” 

Carl nodded with those almost shy eyes that were still so confusing to Ron.

“So you got back,” Ron stated, noticing how pale and untouched Carl’s skin still looked against his dark shirt, even after all the sun he’d apparently gotten.

“Oh, yeah,” Carl said off-handedly. “Yeah, I got back a couple days ago.”

“How was your summer?” Ron asked, even though he thought he already knew how Carl’s summer was. Sunny. Warm. Expensive. No important boyfriends. At least none worth Facebook-mentioning, anyway.

“It was fine,” Carl said. “You know, it was pretty good.”

Ron just nodded back, eyes falling towards the ground.

“How was yours?” Carl asked, and when Ron looked back up into his eyes, it seemed like somehow the answer was important to Carl.

Ron cleared his throat and then shrugged his hand. “Oh, it was fine, too,” he said. “Pretty boring, you know.” He gave a nervous laugh. Honestly, his summer _was_ pretty boring. Way too many video games. Way too much time thinking about Carl. Way too much time wondering about how it could be with Carl when he came back, wondering what Ron even wanted it to be. And way too much time thinking about this moment, in particular, and all of a sudden here he was, face-to-face with the person he’d been thinking so much about, and now he felt like he had no idea what he was doing.

Carl nodded back, and it looked like he was deep in thought as he searched Ron’s face for what, Ron didn’t know.

So Ron picked up the conversation again, asking Carl, “So how is it being back?”

“Oh,” Carl said, taking a look around the room, “it’s been all right. Nice to be home. Cool to see people again.” Ron nodded. “Not looking forward to school starting though,” Carl continued, to which they both laughed awkwardly together.

Carl took a pause, after which he took a serious look at Ron, and then said, with a little less confidence, “Good to see _you_ again.”

Ron stared back at him, and then he couldn’t help himself. “Is it?” he blurted, a genuine question, true curiosity. 

Carl’s blue eyes studied him, and then the faintest smile overtook his face. “Yeah,” he said. 

For a second, it felt like old times, Ron dangling his insecurity and Carl putting him at ease.

Ron ducked his head and let out a small chuckle. Then Carl broke the spell, asking, “Have you been enjoying the party?”

When Ron looked back up, Carl still had the smile on his face, even bigger now, and Ron was feeling less and less awkward by the moment. “Yeah, it’s been fine,” he answered Carl. “Honestly, I’ve just been hangin’ out with Enid most of the time.” He again gestured to his previous spot across the floor.

“Enid’s here?” Carl asked, intrigue in his eyes.

“Yeah, you wanna see her?” Ron said, looking back at Carl. Carl nodded, and Ron gestured with his head, and then Carl was following him across the room. Carl and Enid had never become that close, but since Ron was such great friends with her, the three of them had hung out a fair amount the last school year, before everything had gone down, that is.

Enid was taking another sip of Ron’s beer as they approached her, and she stared at them warily over the top of it. When they got close, Ron stepped out of the way, hands in his pockets again, and Carl stood face-to-face with her just as she was bringing the cup down.

He gave her a friendly smile and said, “Hey, Enid.”

“Carl,” Enid replied with a polite nod, but with narrowed eyes that said _I still don’t trust you_. She had never quite forgiven Carl for cheating on Ron last year, even if it was only the once, and even hearing from Ron that he had apologized again and again.

Carl just kept smiling, and shuffled to the side to stand next to Ron, and then the three of them were standing in a row, looking out at the party together.

“So, are you guys taking biology with Porter this year?” Carl broke the silence after a minute. 

Both Ron and Enid looked over to nod at him.

“And uh, math with Monroe?” Carl asked again.

“Yep,” Ron said while they both nodded back to him.

“Cool,” Carl said, nodding and then staring back at the party ahead. The school year sounded like it was shaping up to be a lot like the last, the three of them with all their main classes together, seeing each other basically all day, five days a week.

For a second, the three of them stood in silence, occupying any discomfort by pretending to stare ahead at the lights and the décor and the blurry mess of people milling about.

It was Enid who spoke up, chasing some of the awkward stillness away. She asked Carl some polite questions about his time on the coast. Ron was impressed at how she contained herself to just the occasional tinge of derision in her voice, which really probably only Ron could pick out. Carl answered every question with the usual aloofness, Ron sneaking glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

Not long after, Enid started waving at someone from across the room before announcing she was going to talk to her friend Meghan and that she’d be back in a bit. “You better, you’re my ride,” Ron had said to her as she started walking off, turning back to give him one last glowing smile.

And then Enid was gone, and it was just Ron and Carl again. Ron nervously scuffed his shoe against the floor, before he resorted to his usual habit of talking too much when he felt uncomfortable. He had never been good with the quiet, and usually ended up filling it with too many words rather than just letting it be and keeping his mouth shut. Not that Carl had ever seemed to mind, but it seemed he especially didn’t tonight. He turned himself towards Ron and the questions Ron asked him took them off into a conversation that was getting less and less awkward with every passing second.

They talked for a while, about the dumb stuff, like if Carl was doing lacrosse again this year, the other classes they were signed up for, which teachers they were excited to have, which ones they were dreading. Soon it felt like there was no nervous tension between them at all, and they were talking as if they hadn’t spent the whole summer apart. Ron no longer ducked his head towards the floor, instead looked back up into Carl’s bright blue eyes.

Eventually Ron was bringing up memories from the last school year, back to the time when he and Carl had still been together. There was a bit of heaviness that came back when he first brought it up, Carl glancing around nervously, but once the topic had been breached, it was silently deemed no longer dangerous territory. And soon they were chuckling over times at the lunch table, and Ron was recounting the cringeworthy moments of Carl’s dorky, but also strangely somewhat charming, dad cheering him on while Carl tried to lay low at his lacrosse games.

After a story about stuff that went down at Carl’s house one night when his dad had invited the whole team over for pizza, they were both laughing hard together, Ron bowing his head down, Carl’s smile bigger than it had been the whole night. And then they tapered off into a silent pause, slowly going back from looking at each other to turning forward again. They stood there with the echoes of their smiles, and both knew what the other was probably thinking about, about how they had stolen away together at the end of that night, left the team watching TV in the living room and sat on the stairs just the two of them, and talked. It felt so long ago, but at the same time not so far away, as here they were again, two teens in a sea of many, on the edge of the dance floor, stealing some time just for them.

When their pause didn’t end, Carl let out a sigh. He spoke up with a nervous voice. “Ron…” he said, and he waited until Ron looked over at him to speak his words. He took a deep breath when Ron put his soft eyes on him and then said, “I _am_ sorry.” Ron glanced down and then back at Carl. “I know it’s been a while but…I’m sorry,” Carl finished.

Ron nodded, and then before he even knew what he was doing, he was saying, “I know. It’s in the past.” Carl’s eyes shined a little brighter, and the smallest smile took over his face.

Ron didn’t know if Enid had purposely gone off with her friend to give him and Carl alone time, but it had definitely been about a half an hour now of them chatting. And that’s when Enid showed up again, coming out of the crowd and waving her phone at Ron to remind him of the time. 

After turning and conversing with her for the briefest second about how Enid’s parents wanted her home soon, Ron looked back at Carl, Enid starting to walk off to her car already.

“So we’re heading out now. Do you want to come with us?” he braved, a slight waver in his voice, hand out gesturing towards Enid and the parking lot.

But Carl shook his head. “No, I promised some friends I’d go to dinner with them.”

Ron’s hand fell and he gave a solemn nod of his head. Then he just stood there, slipping his hands into his pockets again and staring at the ground.

“But…I can call you sometime?”

He looked back up at Carl, and there it was again, that humble, questioning look in those clear blue eyes of his. It was a look that Ron wasn’t at all used to seeing, and now, in this quiet moment, with Carl expecting an answer, he realized those eyes were waiting on _him_. _Carl_ was waiting on _Ron_ to give him the go ahead, to give him the sign and let him back in.

Ron broke into a grin and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you can,” he said.

He didn’t miss the relief that spread on Carl’s face, the way his eyebrows relaxed and how he grinned back. 

“Okay, cool,” Carl said.

Ron kept nodding. “Okay, I’ll see you,” he said, holding his hand up in a wave, before stepping back and turning to follow Enid. Carl stood there alone for a second, before he too went off to find his friends.

“So how’d it go?” Enid asked, as Ron got into the front passenger seat of her dad’s green Ford Explorer.

“Good. Yeah, it was good,” Ron said, smiling to himself as he buckled the seatbelt over his tan jacket. He didn’t feel the need to elaborate as Enid put the car in reverse and started to drive off. He just stared at the lights of the party, now distant, as he wondered what the next school year would hold. He hoped it wouldn’t be as tumultuous as the last, but something inside him assured him it was going to be even better.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my gosh, I SWEAR I don't think Carl's a cheater!!! I actually think he's a great person and has really grown and matured in the show, so lol I don't know why I have two stories where he cheats.
> 
> Also, I don't know how they're drinking beer at a high school party, maybe someone snuck it in, maybe it's non-alcoholic, I don't know. I just didn't feel like changing it. :P


End file.
